While Anaheim rightfully gets a lot of hype for its breweries, Downtown SanTana's craft beer game is also strong. All its restaurants have local, regional, national, and international rarities on tap, in bottles, can and even in micheladas (shoutout to Alta Baja Market!). Yet the best place to enjoy a cold one is The Good Beer Company. Opened in 2014 by owners Brandon Fender and his wife Robyn Spevacek, in a building that dates back to the 1800s, Good Beer is brewing traditional farmhouse ales, saisons, sours and IPAs.
In each and every beer, you can taste the freshness; they all finish clean, with no bitterness or tinny aftertaste. If you're lucky, you can watch as they cut up the fruit that makes the Apricot Oro or the blackberries for the LA Vista. Good Beer offers a memberships club for exclusive offers but there's a waiting list, so come down to DTSA and try some of the most underrated beers in OC.
L.A. Cheese Citra Dry Hopped Wild IPA (7.5% ABV) is currently the only IPA on the menu, but this will satisfy any hop head. Citra hops invade your palate—smooth and wild, with light fruit notes and Good Beer's signature clean finish. Señorita Dry Hopped Gose-style (with hibiscus and grapefruit zest, and at 3.9% ABV) is very refreshing, with the malt up front and the grapefruit at the end. Slight tartness, light and enjoyable. Then there's the Cherry Oro Tart and Fruity Farmhouse Ale aged in oak barrels with cherries (4.1% ABV). For you sour lovers this is heaven—fun to drink but very complex.
I wish the FLORES Dry and Fruity Cascade dry-hopped biere de garde (5.0% ABV) was named after my family, so I'll just pretend it is. Biere de garde ( beer to store or keep) is a style of farmhouse ale specific to France; before the advent of refrigeration, farmers made beer seasonally using the freshest ingredients usually during the cooler months of fall to keep the yeast and malts stable so they could last through the winter. BOOM! FLORES should be enjoyed with a nice charcuterie selection from Electric City Butcher or a deli sandwich from C4 Deli or a bratwurst from Wursthuas or tacos from Guadalajara's or….
The Good Beer Co., 309 W. Fourth St., SanTana, www.thegoodbeerco.com. No phone number
